Number of Words: 1,576
L E S S O N 2 T E A C H E R ’ S G U I D E
Life in the 1950sby Lalit Gupta
Fountas-Pinnell Level UNonfictionSelection SummaryPopular sentiment holds that the 1950s were a time of peace and prosperity. In many ways, they were—especially when compared with the 1930s and 1940s. However, discrimination and different expectations for men and women also were part of the 1950s. This text reviews the events and examines the culture of the 1950s.
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Characteristics of the Text Genre • Nonfi ction
Text Structure • Third-person narrative with some direct address to the reader• Organized by topic in 5 chapters • Underlying structures include description, problem/solution, and compare/contrast.
Content • The growth of the suburbs and car culture• New products for the home and their effect on culture • Discrimination and gender roles in the 1950s
Themes and Ideas • Most decades have had both positive and negative aspects.• Life in the 1950s was different for different groups of people in the United States. • The American dream lifestyle was new.
Language and Literary Features
• Proper names of cultural icons of the period
Sentence Complexity • Some complex sentences contain embedded, dependent clauses • Some sentences contain parenthetical material set off by dashes
Vocabulary • Conceptual words, such as economy, require context and may require a dictionary. Words • Some compound words: highways, homemaker
• Some multisyllable words: comfortable, miraculous, misrepresented Illustrations • Graphs represent complex ideas.
• Photographs with detailed captionsBook and Print Features • Fourteen pages of text, with graphics or photographs on every page
• Table of contents, headings, captions, map, call-outs, graphs © 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
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Target Vocabulary
contested – accuracy or rightness is called into question, p. 12
culprit – person who is guilty of doing something wrong or committing a crime, p. 9
deprived – have something taken away or denied, p. 4
employed – used to accomplish
something, p. 5grimly – carried out in a stern or
forbidding manner, p. 9mentor – a wise advisor who
helps a newcomer, p. 9miraculous – amazing and
extraordinary, an unlikely outcome, p. 8
pursuit – the act of chasing after, p. 4
scholastic – matters having to do with education and schools, p. 12
tumult – a great, noisy, and sometimes violent commotion, p. 12
Life in the 1950s by Lalit Gupta
Build BackgroundHelp students use their knowledge of American twentieth-century cultural history to visualize the selection. Build interest by asking questions such as the following: Have you ever watched old TV shows like I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver? What can you learn about living in the 1950s from these shows? Read the title and author and talk about the photograph. Explain that the image comes from an advertisement from the 1950s.
Introduce the TextGuide students through the text, noting important ideas and nonfi ction features. Help with unfamiliar language so they can read the text successfully. Give special treatment to target vocabulary. Here are some suggestions:
Page 2: Point out the Table of Contents. Suggested language: What are some of the topics you will read about? Who are some of the people who might be mentioned in the chapter on Rock and Roll?
Pages 4–5: Look at the photo. Ask: What details do you notice? Does it look like people in the photo are deprived, or denied of any comforts? Point out the graph on page 5. Explain that builders employed new methods for building houses in the 1950s. Ask:What does the graph suggest about Americans’ pursuit of the American dream during the 1950s?
Page 8: Have students fi nd and read the word miraculous. Ask: What appliances do we take for granted that might have been considered miraculous in the 1950s?
Now turn back to the beginning of the text to read about life in the 1950s.
2 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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ReadHave students read silently while you listen to individual students read aloud. Support their understanding of the text as needed.
Remind students to use the Infer/Predict Strategy and to use text clues to fi gure out text meaning as they read.
Discuss and Revisit the TextPersonal ResponseInvite students to share their personal responses to the selection. Suggested language: How did your ideas about living in the 1950s change after reading this book?
Ways of ThinkingAs you discuss the text, help students understand these points:
Thinking Within the Text Thinking Beyond the Text Thinking About the Text
• The 1950s was a time of prosperity for many, but people were also worried about war, and discrimination was common.
• Cars, TV, and early rock ‘n roll music refl ect the culture of the 1950s.
• Ideals don’t always match reality.
• The prosperity of the 1950s was not shared by minority groups who faced inequality every day during that decade.
• A growing economy supported growth of suburbs and ownership of cars and consumer goods.
• Charts provide detailed information about the 1950s.
• Photographs show typical scenes and cultural icons of the 1950s.
• A map shows the growth of the highway system.
© 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
Choices for Further Support• Fluency Invite students to choose a passage from the text to act out or use for
readers’ theater. Remind them to adjust their reading rate for a page of dense text such as that on page 12.
• Comprehension Based on your observations of the students’ reading and discussion, revisit parts of the text to clarify or extend comprehension. Remind students to go back to the text to support their ideas.
• Phonics/Word Work Provide practice as needed with words and word parts, using examples from the text. Remind students that some words derive from Greek or Latin roots. For example, scholastic is derived from a Greek word, scholastikos, meaning “of a school.”
3 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Writing about ReadingVocabulary PracticeHave students complete the Vocabulary questions on BLM 2.1.
RespondingHave students use their Reader’s Notebook to complete the vocabulary activities on page 15. Remind them to answer the Word Teaser on page 16. (Answer: contested)
Reading Nonfi ctionNonfiction Features: Introduction and Conclusion Remind students that nonfi ction has many features to help readers fi nd and understand important information. Graphics and photographs are two of these features. Tell students that graphics can be as important as the text in nonfi ction books. They add to what is already explained in the text. Readers can look at them before reading, during reading, and then return to them after they have read the page. Graphics include charts and maps. Within these graphics, there might be other helpful information, such as labels, captions, and keys.
Have students turn to page 5 in the text. Ask them to identify the type of graph shown. (picture-graph) Have a volunteer tell what year home construction peaked. (1950) Based on this information, ask how this fact might have affected sales of cars, TVs, and appliances.
Explain that photos are another important source of information. They often add information that is not in the text. Photos can sometimes have a more authentic quality than illustrations.
Instruct students to examine the photograph and read the caption on page 14. Then have students write a longer caption for the photo based on what they see in the background.
Writing Prompt: Thinking Beyond the TextHave students write a response to the prompt on page 6. Remind them that when they think beyond the text, they use their personal knowledge to reach new understandings.
Assessment Prompts• What does the word conform mean on page 8?
• How does the map on page 6 help the reader understand the growth of the car culture?
• What are two sentences on page 10 that support the author’s statement that discrimination existed during the 1950s?
4 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Target VocabularyFill in the outer circles of the Web with words that relate to the Target Vocabulary word. Fill in the blanks in the example sentences with the Target Vocabulary word and a word from the Web. Then make a Web and write example sentences for two of the other Target Vocabulary words.
contestedgrimlymentormiraculous
pursuitemployedculprit
scholastictumultdeprived
Vocabulary
contested: disputed or challenged
results argue
Example Sentences:
The coach disagreed with the referee, so she the
results of the game.
They contested the final vote count and continued to
the need for a recount.
Name Date
Life in the 1950sTarget Vocabulary
Target Vocabulary© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Lesson 2B L A C K L I N E M A S T E R 2 . 1
Grade 6, Unit 1: Finding Your Voice 3
contested
disagreeundecided
argue
Possible responses shown.
02.01_6_246260RNLEAN_Target Voca3 3 6/12/09 10:58:54 AM
English Language DevelopmentReading Support Pair advanced and intermediate readers to read aloud a few paragraphs of the text, or use the audio or online text. Or have beginning students read the captions.
Cultural Support Some English language learners may not be familiar with the various cultural phenomena discussed in the text. Provide support for 3-D movies, TV dinners, and fallout shelters.
Oral Language DevelopmentCheck student comprehension, using a dialogue that best matches your students’ English profi ciency level. Speaker 1 is the teacher, Speaker 2 is the student.
Beginning/Early Intermediate Intermediate Early Advanced/ Advanced
Speaker 1: What decade does the selection tell about?
Speaker 2: the 1950s
Speaker 1: What did William Levitt do?
Speaker 2: helped build suburbs
Speaker 1: What pressures did men face during the 1950s?
Speaker 2: They were expected to cooperate and conform.
Speaker 1: How did TV dinners fi rst become popular?
Speaker 2: A company wanted to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
Speaker 1: What was the American dream of the 1950s?
Speaker 2: The American dream included living in a suburban house and driving a big car. This ideal included owning TVs and new appliances that made life easier.
5 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Name Date
Life in the 1950sThinking Beyond the Text
Think about the questions below. Then write your answer in one or two paragraphs.
Remember that when you think beyond the text, you use your personal knowledge to reach new understandings.
This book describes some people’s concept of an ideal life in the 1950s. Was life in the 1950s as ideal as some like to remember it? Who was not able to live the ideal 1950s life? What do you think it means to live an “ideal life?” Does such a thing really exist? Use your experience and examples from the selection to support your response.
6 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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7 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Target VocabularyFill in the outer circles of the Web with words that relate to the Target Vocabulary word. Fill in the blanks in the example sentences with the Target Vocabulary word and a word from the Web. Then make a Web and write example sentences for two of the other Target Vocabulary words.
contested
grimly
mentor
miraculous
pursuit
employed
culprit
scholastic
tumult
deprived
Vocabulary
contested: disputed or challenged
results argue
Example Sentences:
The coach disagreed with the referee, so she the
results of the game.
They contested the final vote count and continued to
the need for a recount.
Name Date
Life in the 1950sTarget Vocabulary
Lesson 2B L A C K L I N E M A S T E R 2 . 1
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1414233
Student Date Lesson 2
B L A C K L I N E M A S T E R 2 . 2 3
Life in the 1950sRunning Record Form
Life in the 1950s • LEVEL U
Behavior Code Error
Read word correctly ✓cat 0
Repeated word, sentence, or phrase
®cat
0
Omission —cat 1
Behavior Code Error
Substitution cutcat 1
Self-corrects cut sccat 0
Insertion the
ˆcat 1
Word told Tcat 1
page Selection Text Errors Self-Corrections
3 What do the 1950s make you think of? TV shows like I
Love Lucy might come to mind. You might recall rock ’n’ roll
stars like Elvis Presley. Perhaps you picture a girl wearing a
poodle skirt or a boy in rolled-up jeans. All of these things
were part of the 1950s.
However, life in the 1950s was not all fun and games.
Americans worried about nuclear war. They also worried about
fitting in and being “normal.” Minority groups faced
discrimination.
The 1950s had its problems, just like any other decade.
Still, many people remember it fondly. Let’s take a closer look.
Comments: Accuracy Rate (# words read correctly/102 ×
100)
%
Total Self- Corrections
8 Lesson 2: Life in the 1950sGrade 6© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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